Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• QCD axion strings or seeds?

  Simone Blasi, Alberto Mariotti

  SciPost Phys. 18, 016 (2025) · published 15 January 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study the impact of QCD axion strings on the cosmological history of electroweak (EW) symmetry breaking, focussing on the minimal KSVZ axion model. We consider the case of the pure SM Higgs potential as well as a simple scenario with a first order EW phase transition. We capture the effect of the Peccei-Quinn (PQ) sector within an effective-theory approach for the Higgs field, where the axion string core and the heavy PQ states are integrated out. The relevant parameters in this effective theory are controlled by the size of the portal coupling between the Higgs and the PQ scalar, and the mass of the PQ radial excitation. We determine the range of portal couplings for which the axion strings can strongly affect the dynamics of EW symmetry breaking. In the case of a first order EW phase transition, the strings can act as seeds by either catalyzing the nucleation of (non-spherical) bubbles, or leading to the completion of the phase transition by triggering a classical instability.

  3 citations

• Ballistic conductance with and without disorder in a boundary-driven XXZ spin chain

  Adam J. McRoberts, Roderich Moessner

  SciPost Phys. 18, 015 (2025) · published 14 January 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Motivated by recent experiments on Google's sycamore NISQ platform on the spin transport resulting from a non-unitary periodic boundary drive of an XXZ chain, we study a classical variant thereof by a combination of analytical and numerical means. We find the classical model reproduces the quantum results in remarkable detail, and provides an analytical handle on the nature and shape of the spin transport's three distinct regimes: ballistic (easy-plane), subdiffusive (isotropic) and insulating (easy-axis). Further, we show that this phenomenology is remarkably robust to the inclusion of bond disorder – albeit that the transient dynamics approaching the steady states differs qualitatively between the clean and disordered cases – providing an accessible instance of ballistic transport in a disordered setting.

• A numerical approach for calculating exact non-adiabatic terms in quantum dynamics

  Ewen D. C. Lawrence, Sebastian F. J. Schmid, Ieva Čepaitė, Peter Kirton, Callum W. Duncan

  SciPost Phys. 18, 014 (2025) · published 14 January 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Understanding how non-adiabatic terms affect quantum dynamics is fundamental to improving various protocols for quantum technologies. We present a novel approach to computing the Adiabatic Gauge Potential (AGP), which gives information on the non-adiabatic terms that arise from time dependence in the Hamiltonian. Our approach uses commutators of the Hamiltonian to build up an appropriate basis of the AGP, which can be easily truncated to give an approximate form when the exact result is intractable. We use this approach to study the AGP obtained for the transverse field Ising model on a variety of graphs, showing how the different underlying graph structures can give rise to very different scaling for the number of terms required in the AGP.

  4 citations

• Two-point superstring tree amplitudes using the pure spinor formalism

  Sitender Pratap Kashyap

  SciPost Phys. Core 8, 005 (2025) · published 14 January 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We provide a prescription for computing two-point tree-level amplitudes in the pure spinor formalism that provides finite results that agree with the corresponding expression in the field theories. In [J. High Energy Phys. 07, 139 (2019), Phys. Lett. B 800, 135078 (2020)], the same result was discovered in the bosonic strings with indications of generalization to superstrings in the Ramond-Neveu-Schwarz formalism. Pure spinor formalism is the unique super-Poincare covariant approach to quantizing superstrings [J. High Energy Phys. 04, 018 (2000)]. Since the pure spinor formalism is equivalent to other superstring formalisms, it verifies the above claim. We introduce a mostly BRST exact operator to achieve this.

  2 citations

• Evidence of $\phi_0$-Josephson junction from skewed diffraction patterns in Sn-InSb nanowires

  B. Zhang, Z. Li, V. Aguilar, P. Zhang, M. Pendharkar, C. Dempsey, J. S. Lee, S. D. Harrington, S. Tan, J. S. Meyer, M. Houzet, C. J. Palmstrom, S. M. Frolov

  SciPost Phys. 18, 013 (2025) · published 13 January 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study Josephson junctions based on InSb nanowires with Sn shells. We observe skewed critical current diffraction patterns: the maxima in forward and reverse current bias are at different magnetic flux, with a displacement of 20-40 mT. The skew is greatest when the external field is nearly perpendicular to the nanowire, in the substrate plane. This orientation suggests that spin-orbit interaction plays a role. We develop a phenomenological model and perform tight-binding calculations, both methods reproducing the essential features of the experiment. The effect modeled is the $\phi_0$-Josephson junction with higher-order Josephson harmonics. The system is of interest for Majorana studies: the effects are either precursor to or concomitant with topological superconductivity. Current-phase relations that lack inversion symmetry can also be used to design quantum circuits with engineered nonlinearity.

  6 citations

• M5-brane prongs, string soliton bound states and wall-crossing

  Varun Gupta, K. Narayan

  SciPost Phys. Core 8, 004 (2025) · published 13 January 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study Abelian M5-brane field configurations representing BPS bound states of self-dual string solitons whose locations correspond to the endlines of M2-branes ending on the M5-branes. The BPS equations are obtained from appropriate Bogomolny completion of the effective Abelian low energy functional with two transverse scalars, using two vectors representing the directions along which these endline strings extend. Then we impose boundary conditions on the scalars near the string soliton cores. This leads to a molecule-like equilibrium structure of two non-parallel string solitons at fixed transverse separations, with the M5-brane "prong" deformations comprising two "spikes", each shaped like a ridge. The resulting picture becomes increasingly accurate as one approaches the wall of marginal stability, on which these states decay. There are various parallels with wall-crossing phenomena for string web configurations obtained from D3-brane deformations.

• R-matrices and Miura operators in 5d Chern-Simons theory

  Nafiz Ishtiaque, Saebyeok Jeong, Yehao Zhou

  SciPost Phys. Core 8, 003 (2025) · published 13 January 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We derive Miura operators for $W$- and $Y$-algebras from first principles as the expectation value of the intersection between a topological line defect and a holomorphic surface defect in 5-dimensional non-commutative $\mathfrak{gl}(1)$ Chern-Simons theory. The expectation value, viewed as the transition amplitude for states in the defect theories forming representations of the affine Yangian of $\mathfrak{gl}(1)$, satisfies the Yang-Baxter equation and is thus interpreted as an R-matrix. To achieve this, we identify the representations associated with the line and surface defects by calculating the operator product expansions (OPEs) of local operators on the defects, as conditions that anomalous Feynman diagrams cancel each other. We then evaluate the expectation value of the defect intersection using Feynman diagrams. When the line and surface defects are specified, we demonstrate that the expectation value precisely matches the Miura operators and their products.

  2 citations

• Fermionic tensor network methods

  Quinten Mortier, Lukas Devos, Lander Burgelman, Bram Vanhecke, Nick Bultinck, Frank Verstraete, Jutho Haegeman, Laurens Vanderstraeten

  SciPost Phys. 18, 012 (2025) · published 10 January 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We show how fermionic statistics can be naturally incorporated in tensor networks on arbitrary graphs through the use of graded Hilbert spaces. This formalism allows the use of tensor network methods for fermionic lattice systems in a local way, avoiding the need of a Jordan-Wigner transformation or the explicit tracking of leg crossings by swap gates in 2D tensor networks. The graded Hilbert spaces can be readily integrated with other internal and lattice symmetries, and only require minor extensions to an existing tensor network software package. We review and benchmark the fermionic versions of common algorithms for matrix product states and projected entangled-pair states.

  7 citations

• Universal performance gap of neural quantum states applied to the Hofstadter-Bose-Hubbard model

  Eimantas Ledinauskas, Egidijus Anisimovas

  SciPost Phys. 18, 011 (2025) · published 10 January 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Neural Quantum States (NQS) have demonstrated significant potential in approximating ground states of many-body quantum systems, though their performance can be inconsistent across different models. This study investigates the performance of NQS in approximating the ground state of the Hofstadter-Bose-Hubbard (HBH) model, an interacting boson system on a two-dimensional square lattice with a perpendicular magnetic field. Our results indicate that increasing magnetic flux leads to a substantial increase in energy error, up to three orders of magnitude. Importantly, this decline in NQS performance is consistent across different optimization methods, neural network architectures, and physical model parameters, suggesting a significant challenge intrinsic to the model. Despite investigating potential causes such as wave function phase structure, quantum entanglement, fractional quantum Hall effect, and the variational loss landscape, the precise reasons for this degradation remain elusive. The HBH model thus proves to be an effective testing ground for exploring the capabilities and limitations of NQS. Our study highlights the need for advanced theoretical frameworks to better understand the expressive power of NQS which would allow a systematic development of methods that could potentially overcome these challenges.

• Spectral properties of Levy Rosenzweig-Porter model via supersymmetric approach

  Elizaveta Safonova, Mikhail Feigel'man, Vladimir Kravtsov

  SciPost Phys. 18, 010 (2025) · published 10 January 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  By using the Efetov's super-symmetric formalism we computed analytically the mean spectral density $\rho(E)$ for the Lévy and the Lévy -Rosenzweig-Porter random matrices which off-diagonal elements are strongly non-Gaussian with power-law tails. This makes the standard Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation inapplicable to such problems. We used, instead, the functional Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation which allowed to solve the problem analytically for large sizes of matrices. We show that $\rho(E)$ depends crucially on the control parameter that drives the system through the transition between the ergodic and the fractal phases and it can be used as an order parameter.

  2 citations